Two Penny Travels

"Was A Time When" book finished

Today I completed the first draft of my new book entitled "Was A Time When." I put it into our Cloud so my helpers can help do some of the final editing.

I believe all of the elements I wanted in the book are there. Much of it is pretty well written, but I do need to go back through and clean it up. There should be few substantive changes in the story line.

This novel is actually two stories. There is a "short story" set in 3100 A.D. where a young archeologist finds a DVD with the memoirs of a man who lived through the 21st century when civilization was collapsing. There is the memoirs that make the main book that tell of how the world fell apart.

I will let everyone know when the book goes into publication, but it should be within the next couple of months. I plan to publish it as an ebook and a kindle book. I am considering doing a hardcopy in the Print on Demand mode as I did with my other two novels. But that is a lot more work and will cost money. I first need to see if people are interested.

sam

Rabbits -- Grrrrrrrr

My garden was growing. The radish seeds all sprouted and the plants were nearly four inches high. The basil and parsley and cilantro sprouts were just beginning to burst up. The lettuce was growing around my little Bay Tree. The tomato plants already had little green tomatoes on them. I was happy.

I had planted my garden in pots on a raised platform. I had surrounded the platform with wire fencing. It looked impregnable.

Then the Rabbit hit. And hit again, and again. The damned thing found some way through my fencing and trashed my garden, or at least part of it. My radish plants are now ground level. The herb sprouts have disappeared. A chunk of one of my tomato plants is missing. My lettuce patch is bare.

The Rabbit strikes during the night, though I did see one that could be the culprit out on the berm early this morning after sunrise. He/she was completing his stem cutting of the mint plant that Betty from next door had planted. He/she did not eat the leaves, but just cut the stems and left them on the ground. Betty just muttered when I showed the remains to her this morning.

Okay, what to do. I have an air-rifle, but I am not a good shot, and besides this is a residential area and even beebees can create havoc. I could put out a trap, but I think the Rabbit replicates faster than I could reload the trap. I guess what I must do is make my fence more secure and raise the planter pots even higher off the ground. It will be akin to the fence south of San Diego. Then we will see.

But maybe it is a squirrel that climbs fences, even a HomeLand Security Fence.

sam, the Prudent RVer

Travel Control

We did pretty well over the past week. I am on a "project" to limit our driving, and therefore, our consumption of diesel fuel. Since we are not traveling on long trips soon, there is already a good reduction in the miles driven, but I found it sort of amazing just how many local miles we were putting on the truck.

We must drive 14 miles from Jojoba Hills to the first group of stores in Temecula. If we want to go to Costco, it is another 6 miles, and if we need to go to our doctors, it is 4 miles beyond that. Driving around within Temecula between businesses will generally take another 5 to 10 miles, so any trip to town will be a minimum of 28 miles, and if we shop around we can expect to drive 45 to 50 miles. Doctor visits are usually combined with shopping, so those trips run about 60 miles. At an average of 18mpg from the truck and an typical cost of $4.45 per gallon for diesel, trips cost from $7 to $15 per trip.

There are two ways to approach this problem: 1) try to optimize the driving on each trip, and 2) limiting the number of trips. Limiting the number of trips is much more profitable.

One technique we find most useful works with both approaches. We maintain detailed lists of what we want to purchase and where we want to go to purchase those items. Until there are enough items to warrant the cost of the trip, we just do without. In some cases, we teach ourselves the need to plan ahead and be sure we have required supplies in stock.

Another approach we are starting to use is to purchase quantities of staples so we do not have to shop for those items so often. We don't buy 4 roll packages of toilet paper anymore, we buy 24 roll packages. It is good that we have a lot of storage space in the basement of our rig.

So to keep within our fuel budget, we are starting to exert travel control. We are limiting the number of trips we make to purchase those things we need. In the long run, we will save a lot of money this way.

Looking ahead, we need to start working on a cooperative plan with our neighbors so those who are going into town can make purchases for us. More on that later.

sam, the Prudent RVer